China’s cyber regulator on Thursday said it had held a meeting with Nvidia over what it called “serious security issues” with the company’s artificial intelligence chips.
It said US AI experts had “revealed that Nvidia’s computing chips have location tracking and can remotely shut down the technology.”
The Cyberspace Administration of China requested that Nvidia explain the security problems associated with the H20 chip, which was designed for the Chinese market to comply with US export restrictions, and submit documentation to support their case. The announcement comes as Nvidia is rebuilding its China business after Washington this month lifted a ban on H20 sales to the country.
This doesn’t really make sense. Why would your computer give the GPU / NPU access to GPS location? Unless Nvidia is somehow embedding GPS sensors in their chips - which would be obvious to Chinese cybersecurity - this should be a simple software fix. Intel Management Engine is a genuine risk, but I think China has banned / restricted Intel CPUs already.
It might be China trying to force their own companies to use Chinese hardware. I heavily doubt that it would include a GPS chip. At most some way to guess the location by combining many different types of information such as nearby routers /WiFi networks etc.
There are crafty ways to guess a location without GPS. Though I have no idea what this one would entail if at all true.